Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Victimization, Theories of
The fields of criminology and criminal justice have focused, historically, on understanding criminal offending in comparison with criminal victimization. However, a variety of paradigm shifts, scientific advances, and social and political forces since the 1960s and 1970s provided a foundation from which theories of victimization emerged. For instance, in the latter half of the 20th century, a shift occurred among many scholars toward viewing crime as more than just the behavior of an offender. Instead, crime became increasingly viewed as a system, involving not only an offender but also a target or victim, as well as a time/place context that supports or facilitates the victimization of the target by the offender. Alongside this new paradigm, new sources of information about crime emerged, addressing limitations of data compiled from police reports (reported annually in the form of the Uniform Crime Reporting Program). Specifically, the early 1970s marked the emergence of the National Crime Survey (now called the National Crime Victimization Survey), which allows large amounts of information on crime events from the vantage point of victims to be collected and analyzed annually. This national effort set the stage for many subsequent victimization surveys in local communities and/or on special samples (i.e., high school students, college students, women, etc.). These various victimization surveys, i n comparison with official police data, allowed researchers to estimate more accurately the incidence and prevalence of crime in society because they measured crime events, whether or not they were reported to police. Finally, beginning in the 1960s, a sociopolitical movement intended to provide more attention to victims and their rights within the criminal justice system. In response to this movement, more support services began to be provided to victims, and avenues were provided for allowing enhanced involvement on the part of victims in the process of justice (i.e., through victim impact statements). The confluence of these various sociopolitical and scientific shifts was ideal for the emergence of various theoretical perspectives on victimization. These etiological perspectives focused on a wide range of causal influences, which ranged from routine daily activities and lifestyles, to interpersonal interactional dynamics, to broad-based social inequality. Major theories that emphasize these various influences are described in greater detail throughout the remainder of this entry.
Lifestyle-Exposure Theory
In 1978, Michael J. Hindelang, Michael R. Gottfredson, and James Garofalo published their book, Victims of Personal Crime: An Empirical Foundation for a Theory of Personal Victimization. This work delineated the sociodemographic correlates of victimization based on an analysis of victimization survey data. They noted that particular subgroups of the U.S. population experienced greater risk of victimization relative to other groups. Specifically, men, younger adults, and African Americans were at an increased risk in comparison with women, older Americans, and Whites, for instance. To account for such trends in victimization risk, Hindelang, Gottfredson, and Garofalo suggested that victimization risk was a function of lifestyle. In particular, men, younger adults, and African Americans tended to have lifestylesincluding patterns associated with work,
1
school, chores, leisure, etc.that exposed them to victimization opportunities. The specific features of lifestyles presumed to create more exposure to crime were said to include time in public (especially at night), time away from family or household members, and proximity to and/or association with high-offending groups. In short, these features of lifestyle shaped the opportunity for individuals to become crime victims.
consumption patterns simply made it more likely that motivated offenders would encounter suitable targets in time/place contexts that lacked adequate guardianship. Cohen and Felson tested their theory by examining whether a household activity ratio was related to the changing rates of predatory crime in the United States. They measured the household activity ratio as the proportion of U.S. households that were either nonhusband-wife households or households that could be classified as married, husband-present, with a female labor-force participant (1979, p. 600). They hypothesized that increases in such households would be associated with increases in U.S. predatory crime rates under the assumption that such household structures served to approximate routine activities that would increase exposure to motivated offenders, increase target suitability, and decrease guardianship. They found impressive support for this hypothesis across five different predatory crimes. Routine Activities and Individual Victimization Following Cohen and Felson's landmark study, later work extended routine activity theory's application beyond changing national rates of crime. Subsequent work often applied the theory to variation in individual risk of victimization instead. Leading theorists (e.g., Cohen, Kluegel, and Land) suggested, in particular, that the likelihood that an individual would experience victimization was a function of that person's exposure to motivated offenders, proximity to high-crime areas, target attractiveness/suitability, and absence of capable guardianship. From this perspective, individuals whose lifestyle and routine activities make them more visible and accessible to others (possible motivated offenders) are at increased risk for victimization. Similarly, individuals whose lifestyle and activities put them in close physical distance to risky areas (i.e., areas where a large proportion of offenders reside or where a large number of targets exist) are at increased risk. Individuals who possess valuable, visible, accessible, and moveable goods are at greater risk for property victimization. In terms of more violent offenses, where victimoffender confrontation is part of the criminal event, individuals who have characteristics that make them physically or socially vulnerable (i.e., small physical size, limited strength, low socioeconomic status, and intoxication) are considered to have heightened victimization risk. Finally, individuals who engage in safety precautions designed to provide protection or defenseincluding actions such as installation of extra locks, use of security systems/cameras, or participation in neighborhood watchare presumed to be at reduced overall victimization risk. Empirical evidence regarding the ability of routine activity theory to explain individual variation in victimization has been impressive. Several decades of research have shown that individual-level indicators of exposure, proximity, target suitability, and guardianship are positively related, as predicted, to a variety of types of individual victimization including, as just a few examples, both property crime and violent street crimes (i.e., burglary, theft, physical assault, robbery, and sexual violence), school crime, crime on college campuses, workplace violence, computer fraud, and white-collar crime. Offending Lifestyle and Individual Victimization As an offshoot of routine activity theory's application to understanding individual victimization risk, there has been a special focus on the theoretical role of criminal offending behavior on individual victimization risk. A long-standing recognition among researchers indicates that a substantial overlap exists between victim and offender populations. In other words, many offenders are also crime victims. Despite recognition of this correlation, research to date has not clearly revealed whether the relationship is causal. There are, in fact, competing theoretical ideas about how offending and victimization might be related. The most popular perspective on the offending-victimization linkage is consistent with routine activity theory. That is, a criminal lifestyle provides opportunity for victimization. A criminal offender is, after all, likely exposed to other offenders and/or often in close proximity to high-crime locations because of his or her own offending activities. Furthermore, a criminal offender often provides target suitability. For instance, a successful drug dealer has a plentiful stock of a valuable commodity as well as a good deal of cash. Both drugs and cash make attractive targets. Other types of offenders are suitable targets because of their vulnerability. For example, a drug user is
3
more easily duped when under the influence of his or her addiction. Additionally, offenders might be viewed as suitable targets in that their offending behavior is provocative, which elicits strong reactions from others to the point of victimization of said offender. Finally, an offender can be thought to have less capable guardianship than nonoffenders in the sense that an offender is less likely to call on law enforcement for protection in fear that his or her own criminal activities are discovered. Despite theoretical and empirical support for the idea that offending might increase victimization, the causal linkage is far from proven. The idea that the relationship works in reverse is supported both theoretically and empiricallywith victimization increasing offending. This sort of relationship is justified on the grounds that victimization is a traumatic event, causing negative reactionsincluding escape and offending in some who experience it. Another explanation is that victimization causes a withdrawal from prosocial ties and activities, thereby increasing exposure to and involvement with marginalized others, including offenders. Although there is limited empirical support for this idea, somewhat contradictory evidence suggests that victimization leads to a less risky as opposed to a more risky lifestyle. In short, much debate surrounds whether offending causes victimization or, conversely, whether victimization affects offending and, if the latter, whether victimization increases or decreases offending. Given this theoretical ambiguity, some have suggested that offending and victimization are reciprocally rather than undirectionally related. This proposed bidirectionality is understudied as of yet. However, one seminal piece of research in this regard is the work of Janet Lauritsen, Robert Sampson, and John Laub. In their 1991 article published in Criminology, Lauritsen, Sampson, and Laub analyzed the first five waves of the National Youth Survey and found that delinquent lifestyle significantly increased victimization, but victimization also significantly increased delinquent lifestyle. Nearly two decades later, this study remains fundamentally important as it represents one of the few studies that addresses reciprocity between offending and victimization. Low Self-Control and Individual Victimization Another offshoot of routine activity theory's application to understanding individual victimization risk is theory emphasizing the role of self-control on the part of crime victims. Christopher Schreck, in particular, has been at the forefront of developing a theoretical understanding of how an individual's self-control contributes to victimization risk. His explanation dovetails nicely with routine activity theory, as it relies on the idea that variations in self-control coincide with variations in criminal opportunity. For instance, Schreck suggests that individuals with low self-control are risk takers, thus leading to greater exposure to dangerous people and places. In addition, individuals with low self-control are more likely deemed suitable targets by peers because of their impulsivesometimes to the point of being noxiousbehavior. In short, low self-control can serve to antagonize motivated offenders. Finally, lower self-control suggests limited planning and foresight, implying that capable guardianship might be more often lacking among individuals with such a trait. Routine Activities and Victimization in Contexts and at Places Although routine activity theory has been predominantly applied to understanding victimization risk across individuals, other applications focus on understanding how victimization risk varies across spatial units. After all, researchers know that crime is spatially clustered rather than being distributed randomly across geographic spaces. The spatial units that have been considered vary in size from larger macrolevel units such as neighborhoods or even metropolitan areas (i.e., standard metropolitan statistical areas) to smaller microlevel units such as street segments or specific addresses. For instance, a large body of community-level research has found that rates of victimization are much higher in some neighborhoods than others. Considering smaller spatial units, research also reveals patterning at the level of street block and/ or face block. Widely cited research by Lawrence Sherman, Patrick Gartin, and Michael Buerger in 1989 reported crime clustering at an even smaller level of analysisthe place level. They studied calls for police service in Minneapolis during a 14
year period; this resulted in analysis of 323,979 incidents. These calls for service could have come from any of the 115,000 places, which are defined as addresses or intersections within the city. Rather than crime reports being spread across all 115,000 places, however, it was markedly concentrated. In fact, most places did not experience any calls, whereas a small fraction of places accounted for the bulk of the total calls. More specifically, Sherman et al.'s analysis showed that 50% of all of the calls occurred at just 3% of the possible places. As a whole, then, research shows various types of crime concentrations, forming everything from hot areas to hot spots. The underlying premise of a routine activity theory of context/place is that such hot areas and hot spots emerge because various social contexts or places can be viewed as having characteristics related to opportunity, just as can individuals. For instance, some neighborhoods are in closer proximity to areas of highoffender concentration in comparison with other neighborhoods. Additionally, some neighborhoods are more accessible to offenders than are other neighborhoods. Some places contain a greater supply of attractive targets than do other places. Other places provide a poorer overall level of security or potential for surveillance/guardianship than do others. Such areas and places offer more opportunity for crime. Hence, the rates of victimization within these areas and places are likely to be higher. Place Management Consistent with the idea that some contexts support victimization more so than do others, place management has become a particularly relevant theoretical concept. Put simply, the way specific places (i.e., bars, schools, convenience stores, and apartments) are managed can affect crime and victimization opportunities at the place. The rate of bar brawls, for instance, can be related to such things such as the layout of the bar in relation to a dance floor (so as to minimize crowding), drink prices, bar policy on serving to intoxicated customers, and training offered to service and security staff. Victimization, in short, can be controlled through place-specific, management-related policy and practice. Offender Searches and Crime/ Victimization Patterns The crime and victimization patterns noted in the above research on neighborhoods, streets, and specific places comport well with the theoretical work of criminologists Paul and Patricia Brantingham. The Brantinghams suggest that offenders have routine activity patterns just the same as victims do, and their search for crime is likely to coincide with their daily patterns of movement. As such, offenders are likely to choose attractive targets at their places of routine activity, which include areas near their residence, major businesses/workplaces, large shopping or entertainment areas, and large schools or universities. Such nodes of activity, then, are at higher risk of becoming hot spots of crime because they have a higher likelihood of bringing motivated offenders into contact with suitable targets throughout the course of everyday routine activities. These nodes are crime generators, in a sense, because of the opportunities presented. The intended function of the node is not crime; yet opportunity for crime is so plentiful in comparison with other places just in terms of exposure between motivated offenders and suitable targets alone that they can be said to generate crime. Major routes (streets, walkways, etc.) that connect various nodes also provide substantial opportunity for victimization. Again, as motivated offenders travel about their daily activities, from point A to point B to point C, major thoroughfares (what Brantingham and Brantingham refer to as paths) serve as places where offenders can come into contact with an abundance of suitable targets. In sum, chances are that motivated offenders will encounter targets for victimization that meet their liking at major nodes and along major paths; these chances are much greater than at places that are off the beaten path. Noncentral or isolated places are less likely to be encountered by both victims and offenders, thus reducing the likelihood that they will become hot spots of crime and victimization. Some central nodes and pathways will be so opportunistic, according to the work Brantingham and Brantingham, that they will actually become crime attractorsplaces that offenders actually go to specifically for crime purposes.
5
Beyond major nodes and pathways, another type of place that is particularly opportunistic is referred to as edge space. According to Brantingham and Brantingham, edge spaces are boundaries, in essence, which can take a variety of forms. Edges form the transition from one space to another. As such, there are sometimes multiple users of edge spaces; those who use each space often converge and cross over at the edges. Because of that, ambiguity can develop in terms of who is in charge of the space who really owns the space. As an example, think of the few streets that serve as the edge of a residential neighborhood that is adjacent to a commercial entertainment district. Such a neighborhood, especially near the perimeter, experiences outsiders coming onto its streets regularly. These outsiders often seek parking in the neighborhood or they cut through the neighborhood after entering or exiting the commercial district. Based on this adjacency, residents along the neighborhood's edges may suffer higher rates of victimization in the form of auto theft and vandalism as well as suffering from victimless crimes such as public intoxication and noise violations. The drunk and disorderly behavior that is part of the late-night entertainment venues in the commercial district spills over from the commercial property itself to the adjoining area. At the edge of the neighborhoodin contrast to the core/interior the people and property are more exposed to motivated offenders, and a higher concentration of suitable targets is found. Also, because of the sheer volume of traffic, residents are overwhelmed when it comes to providing guardianship. In short, edges are transitional zones between two more clearly distinct physical spaces that have particularly high rates of victimization because of a greater likelihood of a convergence of motivated offenders, suitable targets, and absence of capable guardianship that is created by adjacency. Multilevel Opportunity An overview of the discussion to this point reveals that victimization opportunity has been theorized to exist at multiple levels of analysis. For instance, Cohen and Felson's original statement on routine activity theory was a macro-level one, focusing on opportunity as provided by national-level activity patterns over time. Other researchers since the late 1970s have underscored the importance of opportunity at various levels of aggregation, including cities and neighborhoods. Other work has emphasized microlevel variation, including how specific places and people differ in terms of opportunity. Taking all these theoretical perspectives together, then, it is clear that victim opportunity can exist in multiple realms. Multilevel opportunity theory has been developed to address this idea. From a multilevel perspective, a complete understanding of individual victimization risk needs to consider the opportunities presented not only by the individual's lifestyle/routine activities but also the opportunities presented by the environmental contexts in which the individual is embedded, including the specific places, neighborhoods, cities, and so on, within which the individual moves about his or her daily activities. In addition to recognizing that opportunities for crime can come from multiple realms, multilevel opportunity theory suggests that opportunity factors interact across realms such that individual risk factors for victimization do not, in fact, pose the same risk regardless of context. From this perspective, an overall risk of victimization involves a complex interplay between individual risk factors in combination with risk in the multiple environments in which the individual is embedded. Structural-Choice Theory Related to the multilevel opportunity perspective outlined above, Terance Miethe and Robert Meier proposed a multilevel structural-choice theory of victimization in their 1994 book titled Crime and Its Social Context: Toward an Integrated Theory of Offenders, Victims and Situations. On the one hand, like the multilevel opportunity perspective, the structural-choice perspective views crime and victimization as a result of factors at multiple levels of analysis. However, according to Miethe and Meier, criminal opportunities are largely provided by individual-level characteristics of victims (i.e., their individual-level exposure, target suitability, and guardianship practices). On the other hand, environmental conditions provide motivation for the offender. For
6
instance, neighborhoods with poor socioeconomic conditions, high rates of residential mobility, and ethnic heterogeneity create socially disorganized climates conducive to producing criminality among their inhabitants. According to Miethe and Meier, crime is a function of both the criminality-producing structural factors in the environment and the indicators of vulnerability among individual citizens, which makes them more or less likely to be chosen as targets/victims.
Conflict/Critical/Feminist Theory
A final theory of victimization to be discussed hereconflict/critical theory, including feminist theory explains victimization as a result of power differentials between victims and offenders. This perspective is most commonly applied to victimization in which obvious power differences are found between the offender and victim, including sexual assault, child abuse, family violence, and intimate partner violence. Even though there are various brands of conflict theory, the overarching theme is that an offender's victimization of another is an expression of domination and control. Such expressions of domination and control are presumed to stem from broad structural inequalitiesbased on age and gender, for instanceand corresponding patriarchal societal values emphasizing dominant males and subordinate yet manipulative (especially sexually) females. Thus, crimes like sexual assault, intimate partner violence, and stalking are viewed as expressions of traditional gender role socialization and methods of maintaining the status quo regarding power and control in interpersonal relationships and society more broadly (see, e.g., Brownmiller, 1975; Russell, 1975). The conflict perspective is not only helpful in understanding why some victimization may occur, but also it is useful in understanding differential responses to victimization. Sexual assault and domestic physical assaults, for instance, are crimes that have been notoriously underreported by victims to police. Conflict perspectives
7
suggest that this underreporting largely stems from biased and inappropriate treatment of victims of such crimes by agents within the criminal justice system, from police and prosecutors to juries and judges. Research has, indeed, documented degrading and belittling of rape victims by some police officers. Additionally, the reluctance of courts to prosecute and convict rapists has also been noted. Conflict theorists argue that, when social control is enacted on rapists (i.e., in the form of arrest, prosecution, and conviction), it seems to be biased in favor of upholding the status quo in terms of race, class, and gender and sexuality norms. For instance, Gary LaFree's extensive research on this issue revealed that the criminal justice system seems more likely to punish offenders who victimize those who are perceived as traditional, upstanding women (i.e., White, married, and at home during the assault) while being far more lenient on offenders victimizing women of color and women violating traditional gender norms (i.e., those who are unmarried, hitchhike, have a sexual history, etc.). In short, traditional women were viewed as more credible victims by those in the legal system. Lisa Frohmann's research on prosecutorial decision-making in sexual assault cases provides another example of well-known research supportive of this idea. Her study revealed that many cases were purged from the system because of the prosecutor's perception that the victim was not credible and/or did not present a story that was likely to result in a high rate of conviction. The factors included in that judgment included victim demeanor, place of residence, and victim's initial willingness to have contact with the offender. In sum, some evidence suggests that criminal justice agents construct a definition of a plausible, typical, winnable rape case and that social construction seems to be intertwined with power. According to conflict theory, victims are powerless relative to offenders; yet some victims have greater standing in the eyes of the legal system. Individual victims who uphold the power structure in terms of race, class, and traditional notions of gender are far more likely to experience justice.
Further Readings
Brantingham, P. L. and Brantingham, P. J. Nodes, paths, and edges: Considerations on the complexity of crime and the physical environment. Journal of Environmental Psychology vol. 13 pp. 328. (1993). Brownmiller, S. (1975). Against our will: Men, women and rape. New York: Simon & Schuster. Cohen, L. E. and Felson, M. Social change and crime rate trends: A routine activity approach. American Sociological Review vol. 44 pp. 588608. (1979). Cohen, L. E. , Kluegel, J. R. , and Land, K. C. Social inequality and predatory criminal victimization: An exposition and test of a formal theory. American Sociological Review vol. 46 pp. 505524. (1981). Frohmann, L. Discrediting victims' allegations of sexual assault: Prosecutorial accounts of case rejections. Social Problems vol. 38 pp. 213226. (1991).
8
Hindelang, M. J. , Gottfredson, M. R. , & Garofalo, J. (1978). Victims of personal crime: An empirical foundation for a theory of personal victimization. Cambridge, MA: Ballinger. LaFree, G. (1989). Rape and criminal justice: The social construction of sexual assault. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth. Lauritsen, J. L. , Sampson, R. J. , and Laub, J. H. The link between offending and victimization among adolescents. Criminology vol. 29 pp. 265292. (1991). McShane, M. , ed. , & Williams, F. P. (Eds.). (1997). Victims of crime and the victimization process. New York: Routledge. Miethe, T. D. , & Meier, R. F. (1994). Crime and its social context: Toward an integrated theory of offenders, victims, and situations. Albany: State University of New York Press. Russell, D. (1975). The politics of rape: The victim's perspective. New York: Stein and Day. Schreck, C. J. Criminal victimization and low self-control: An extension and test of a general theory of crime. Justice Quarterly vol. 16 pp. 633654. (1999). Sherman, L. W. , Garten, P. R. , and Buerger, M. E. Hot spots of predatory crime: Routine activities and the criminology of place. Criminology vol. 27 pp. 2756. (1989). Wolfgang, M.E. (1958). Patterns in criminal homicide. Montclair, NJ: Patterson Smith. (Reprinted 1975)
Entry Citation: Wilcox, Pamela. "Victimization, Theories of." Encyclopedia of Victimology and Crime Prevention. Ed. Bonnie S. Fisher and Steven P. Lab. Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE, 2010. 978-86. SAGE Reference Online. Web. 6 Aug. 2012.